Installed games on Steam repeatedly become corrupted

Affected games: Darktide, Helldivers, or really any sufficiently large game, it doesn’t seem to happen with small games.

In short, I constantly need to run file verification on games that I keep installed, and it always finds around 2-10 files that need to be re-downloaded. This generally happens between Steam restarts and game updates, but has happened after simply waiting some time between launches (a few hours) without restarting Steam or receiving an update.

I run the game from an ext4 formatted separate drive and secondary Steam Library (Samsung SSD). I checked the SMART tests and they show no sign of any errors. Steam itself is the one from the SUSE repo, not the flatpak version, and I’m using GE-Proton to run the game.

All sources I’ve been able to find on this issue say to download the repo version of Steam (I already have it), and checking the drive for any failures (there’s none that I can find, though I’ll attach the SMART log of the drive involved; just note that the CRC errors are from when I first installed it with a bad cable, they’re not recent, and the cable is good).

The games work just fine if I run them right after a verification, but it’s getting tiring having to do so all the time.

smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [x86_64-linux-6.18.2-1-default] (SUSE RPM)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Samsung based SSDs
Device Model:     Samsung SSD 870 EVO 4TB
Serial Number:    S758NX0X300066N
LU WWN Device Id: 5 002538 f44303fee
Firmware Version: SVT03B6Q
User Capacity:    4,000,787,030,016 bytes [4.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Form Factor:      2.5 inches
TRIM Command:     Available, deterministic, zeroed
Device is:        In smartctl database 7.5/5894
ATA Version is:   ACS-4 T13/BSR INCITS 529 revision 5
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.3, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Mon Dec 29 12:50:21 2025 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)	Offline data collection activity
					was never started.
					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
					without error or no self-test has ever 
					been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection: 		(    0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x53) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					No Offline surface scan supported.
					Self-test supported.
					No Conveyance Self-test supported.
					Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)	Saves SMART data before entering
					power-saving mode.
					Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)	Error logging supported.
					General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time: 	 (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 ( 320) minutes.
SCT capabilities: 	       (0x003d)	SCT Status supported.
					SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
					SCT Feature Control supported.
					SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       11990
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       177
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     0x0013   099   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       7
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   0x0013   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0032   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  0x0032   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0013   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
187 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0032   077   055   000    Old_age   Always       -       23
195 ECC_Error_Rate          0x001a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
199 CRC_Error_Count         0x003e   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       3643
235 POR_Recovery_Count      0x0012   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       49
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       19283288249
252 Added_Bad_Flash_Blk_Ct  0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       47

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11980         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11956         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11936         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11912         -
# 5  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11888         -
# 6  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11882         -
# 7  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11877         -
# 8  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11854         -
# 9  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11830         -
#10  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11806         -
#11  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11782         -
#12  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11758         -
#13  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11734         -
#14  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11710         -
#15  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11686         -
#16  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11662         -
#17  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11638         -
#18  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11614         -
#19  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11590         -
#20  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11566         -
#21  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11542         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
  256        0    65535  Read_scanning was never started
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

The above only provides legacy SMART information - try 'smartctl -x' for more

If you run Steam from command line, does it show anything unusual when this happens?

Same thing here. openSUSE Tumbleweed, one ssd, every time I launch steam it does verification for some of the games on my list (ex. Fallout 4, Skyrim). Had this happen on Ubuntu, Arch, openSUSE. I figured it’s just the way it is, and don’t pay much attention to it.

Could this be just that there are newer/other versions of these files available so an update is done?

Good you run from an ext4 formatted separate drive, that makes debugging easier, first thing to figure out is when exactly the problem happens.

@PresenceOfRust: Good info, searching https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux I found:

I was thinking my games drive is ext4 and I don’t have this problem with Steam, but actually my drive is xfs. If you can’t find a better solution (and it’s not a huge hassle), you might try reformatting, I guess.

IMO, this is a Steam issue, not an openSUSE issue.

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